James, Wilie and I headed down to Santa Cruz last Wednesday to capture what we hoped would be a nice sunset. We settled on Panther Beach but quickly got bored of the compositions and James and I went through the hole to Hole in the Wall Beach. We met Lukas and Jim Patterson as we waited for the sun to set (super cool). I spent a while on the other side of these rocks but as the sun continued to set I followed the color in the sky back around to this side of the rocks that you see in this photo. I really liked how the rock would guide the retreating wave around before splashing back into the ocean. I used a long shutter (2 seconds) to capture the wave action. Luckily I had some big rain boots on and I was able to stand in the water without really getting wet — which provided the nice water motion that you see in this shot
I managed to get back through the hole in the wall and return to my car without getting swept away this time Last time I went for an accidental swim, got tossed into the rocks, and ruined my D80, iPhone, blackberry and 50mm f/1.8. Yay for surviving this time with no casualties
Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/14, 2 sec, ISO 160
HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Purchase at Aaron M Photography